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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27746182">Heart in reverse</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/timid_owl/pseuds/timid_owl'>timid_owl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magicians (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Healing, M/M, Post-Canon, in a... way, it’s more an Eliot/life really</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:07:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,085</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27746182</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/timid_owl/pseuds/timid_owl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"It will get better", Charlton says once, his voice calm and pleasantly grounding. There is a certainty there that Eliot craves to be able to embrace some day.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Charlton/Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heart in reverse</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Angsty things about ambivalent feelings come in English for some reason, I’m sorry for that. It’s a weird notion of fix-it but oh well</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>It is life in slow motion, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>it’s the heart in reverse, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>it’s a hope-and-a-half: </em>
</p><p>
  <em>too much and too little and once.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <b>Rainer Maria Rilke</b>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>"It will get better", Charlton says once, his voice calm and pleasantly grounding. There is a certainty there that Eliot craves to be able to embrace some day.</p><p>Charlton would have been perfect for him <em>then</em>, he thinks, would have been ideal for the time zero Eliot, the one who never got that bloody key into the keyhole, who never got inside the damn clock. But unfortunately for everyone involved, the Eliot they all are currently stuck with is the one who made sure to pile up all the possible mistakes, and nobody could be perfect for this one, not anymore.</p><p>So he just waits, until the pain is replaced by numbness at least. It never really happens: there is no numbness, no nothingness, the fuzzy tenderness blooming in his chest infuriatingly fast. The pain never really goes away, too: everything he feels at any given moment is always tinted by grief, by an absence stuck somewhere between his ribs, a missing piece he can't not see, even though the whole puzzle seems satisfying enough.</p><p> </p><p>"Maybe it's a quest", Jane says when he visits her once. "Maybe there is a prize waiting at the end of it."</p><p>"Fuck quests", Eliot says and he's proud of how sure and steady he sounds.</p><p> </p><p>It feels unfair, at first, the unfairness so overwhelming it makes him cry, and drink, and cry some more, lying awake in the middle of the night in a warm sweet bed, shared with someone warm and sweet. The longing is so strong then, so unbearable, so very stupid: he has nice things now, he enjoys them plenty, why isn't it enough, why all this terrifying want for something he can not have. Why isn't he ever able to unbrake this dumb mind of his and just be <em>here</em>, for fucking once. It is so unfair to himself, to Charlton, to all this friends, to (<em>don't, just don't, you stupid...</em>) Q.</p><p>But then it is also the fairest thing, a second chance to not fuck it all up, to accept what was offered and damn him if he didn't promise himself to be braver, to be brave enough to at least try.</p><p> </p><p>He learns to love as one learns to walk on plastic prosthetic legs. It hurts, it's frustrating more often than not, sometimes it makes him want to quit, and hide in a cave, and never try again, but it's also - liberating and light, anesthetic in a nice, real way: not taking the pain away, not disguising it, just helping to accept it, to go on, to find and love and be so many things instead. He doesn't think he'll be able to fully master it though, there will always be a certain limp, an angular woodiness, unique and charming in its own way. </p><p>It does get better. As years go by, he isn't happy exactly, not at first, but he is... content. It feels good and healing and he enjoys it oh how much. The feeling in his chest is a quiet and clear thing, not fierce enough to light up the whole room, but it's warm and it's always there, he can depend on it without hesitation, without fear, or doubts, or anger, or (for what it's worth) loathing, and that, Eliot thinks, is trully fucking beautiful.</p><p> </p><p>He visits Jane when he's old enough and Jane is so much older it hurts.</p><p>"I don't think I want the prize at the end. I don't think I want to know there is anything I might not yet have. I don't want to wander", Eliot says, because it exhausts one terribly to wander.</p><p>"Then don't", Jane says.</p><p>"It wouldn't be fair to him, you know. To be just part of my quest. He deserves more than this", Eliot says and thinks <em>more than me, really</em>, and all of a sudden this thought doesn't fit so easily in his brain, doesn't seem as axiomatic as it used to be.</p><p>"Maybe you're part of his", Jane shrugs. "Selflessness is a strictly theoretical concept, there is always something for everyone to take".</p><p> </p><p>Then Eliot is very old himself - he had forgotten how it feels to be this thin and this ephermal all the time. He is happy with his life now, in retrospective and in general. It was a life full and true, by no means less so than his first one, and he feels grateful and proud. He feels at peace.</p><p>“I love you", he says to Charlton holding his hand. He means it, every word. It's not the only thing he feels, it never was, but on it's own it's a self-sufficient truth, cosy and heavy on his heart. There is no remorse in it, no damage, as if a god of tiny broken things has glued it all together after all. It's a surprisingly nice thought to have on your dying breath, he muses. Then comes a comfortable, soft darkness, and nothing else.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>He wakes up to a very young morning, sunlight honey-liquid on the wooden walls and linen sheets. There is a painfully familiar warmth on his chest, long messy hair tickling his chin and nose.</p><p>He doesn't remember what he dreamt of, only that it was sad and sweet and he didn't want to wake up, but at the same time he terribly, achingly did. He feels tired and new and soothed in a way you feel soothed when a fierce pain is gone and there is only the bliss of ataraxy left.</p><p>On his chest Q makes a small muffled sound, heartbreakingly cute in its morningness. 

"I missed you", he says, his voice rough from sleep, "And also, why the hell you up? What is it, seven?"</p><p>“I had this strangest dream", Eliot says, kissing Q's forehead. It feels intolerably good, he should be doing it more often. He should be doing other things, too, Q's skin so soft and hot under his touch.</p><p>"Mid-summer Night strange or The Sandman strange?", Q asks, pressing closer, burying his face in the nape of Eliot's neck, "Right there please if you don't - oh god, El, <em>please</em>! - mind".</p><p>"Somewhere in between", Eliot hums and pushes Q on his back, leaning into his warmth and happiness with each atom, each tiniest piece of his soul, broken and brought back together.</p><p>"Missed you, too, baby", he says, and it feels incredible.</p>
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